Heljan Kestrel is here

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Can't believe anyone on here does not have one yet, if two total BR Standard steam nuts like me and Ramrig have them what's your excuse?

Three very persuasive reasons.

 

Not nearly as pretty as DP1.

 

Can't be run with steam.

 

All modelling wonga for the last six months allocated to the Presflos/O4/class 105/A2/class 15 fund. Got to be very disciplined ahead of the monumental splurge.

[On30runner]

I have bought a Kestrel this week and I am very happy with it. Such a shame the Bachmann deltic is so expensive, I can't justify buying it

[Southernman46]

Daughter: Are you going to show mum.

Me: No, mum is not interested in trains.

Daughter: Are you going to tell her about it.

Me: No, she does not want to know.

 

 

Ho-ho - very amusing - ditto recent conversation with wife on arrival of said "KESTREL"

 

"That's different - How much was that then"

"A lot - You don't really want to know"

"Then why did you buy it ?"

"Cos you always say - why do you need another blue & yellow engine?"

 

No reply !! - I'd won - I think I've won - I'm sure she was quiet because I'd won ? :icon_confused: :icon_confused:

[bennyboy]

Daughter: Are you going to show mum.

Me: No, mum is not interested in trains.

Daughter: Are you going to tell her about it.

Me: No, she does not want to know.

 

 

Ho-ho - very amusing - ditto recent conversation with wife on arrival of said "KESTREL"

 

"That's different - How much was that then"

"A lot - You don't really want to know"

"Then why did you buy it ?"

"Cos you always say - why do you need another blue & yellow engine?"

 

No reply !! - I'd won - I think I've won - I'm sure she was quiet because I'd won ? :icon_confused: :icon_confused:

 

She has only let you think that you've won. She'll get her revenge in the not too distant future...

[The Stationmaster]

I finally received my Kestrel today and such a lovely beast it is. I opened the box at the dining table with my 6 year old daughter.

Daughter: Are you going to show mum.

Me: No, mum is not interested in trains.

Daughter: Are you going to tell her about it.

Me: No, she does not want to know.

 

tehehe - we were talking last night about my visit to Wycrail

 

'What did you buy?

 

'Some books and a rolling road thingy' (followed by long explanation of a rolling road.... phew!)

 

'Anything else?'

 

'Well I did buy a loco and three wagons'

 

Oh, so you spent quite a bit then?

 

'Well it wasn't an expensive loco. And altogether the lot cost nothing like as much as the thing I bought you at the auction on Friday'

 

Conversation moved to the next subject area........

[Summer_Saturday]

For anyone wanting to weather their Kestrel model, there is a good reference photo on a completed eBay listing. The item number to search with is 400084091133. Even as a completed listing, this brings up the finished auction without having to log into an eBay account.

 

The description says the picture was taken at Stratford depot circa 1970.

[Ramrig]

Well after purchasing an example last year the first thing that struck me was the starkness of the roof. Too clean for a late 60's diesel........ But should I weather a Limited Edition loco that cost that much?

 

A few weeks ago a fellow Club member, Alex turned up with his suitably weathered and fitted with new fan grills. The seed was sown. At DEMU I purchased 2 sets of Class 47 Grills and Fans from Shawplan. Passed the loco and parts to Alex.

 

Saturday morning he turned up with this...........................

 

 

A close up of the Fan Grills.

 

A final close up of it on the club layout

 

A massive improvement. I don't do clean loco's. Many thanks to Alex Carpenter (ABC Workshops) for the work.

[John Tomlinson]

After nearly a year of owning a Kestrel, I finally plucked up the courage to try to change the headcodes on Christmas Eve! To my relief this is not as difficult as we might think.

 

1) Separate body from chassis by releasing the four bodyside lugs - as on the 47. You also need to release the jumper cable which runs from the lower nearside cab to a little box by the nearside buffer. Once separate I released the two cables which run from the printed circuit board to the cab - this can be done by carefully eeasing out the push socket on the circuit board.

 

2) You now have a free bodyshell. Inside you can peel back the sticky silver paper that helps to hold the cab assemblies in place - these will then unclip from the roof socket to reveal the headcode panel from inside. The printed headcodes are not fixed to the glass but rather rest against it, and can be flicked out with careful use of the point of a cocktail stick. If you wish, you can release the glass headcode panels by pushing gently from the inside so they fall outwards - they are rebated this way and I seem to remember that the 47 has the same arrangement. I pressed gently at one end with a blunt cocktail stick whilst giving support outside with a finger - this did the job without damage - phew!!

 

3) You can now use a marker pen/ fine brush/ whatever to render the inside edge of the headcode panel black, though I should say that it doesn't make a huge amount of difference when re-assembled. Proceed then to making up your required headcodes. I used the Heljan examples as a template to cut two pieces thin black paper card, which has the flexibility to bend into the curve required. For headcodes themselves I used the Modelmaster sheet 4208, but not as decals, rather cutting to size and sticking with Bostik Solvent Free to the papercard. I used a small black marker to touch in any parts of the "decal" where the backing paper had been revealed in the cutting process. You now have two replacement headcode strips to your choice. By using this Modelmaster sheet, which has larger symbols than his 4206, I found that the symbol height almost completely filled the headcode space on the model, and looked far more realistic compared to photographs as a result. The codes supplied have been printed too small, giving the toy like appearance referred to elsewhere in this forum. I wouldn't like to say if the moulded box itself is of inadequate height, but there is certainly a great improvement in appearance by merely using larger letters. It would be possible I suppose to mark the outer lip of the headcode box in black, but this would need a far steadier hand than mine and has the potential to look dreadful if not done precisely - if achieved it would represent the rubber surround clearly visible on prototype photos.

 

4) The whole thing can then be re-assembled. I found positioning of the replacement strips a bit tricky, and for some reason one of them went in best before re-fitting the glass and the other after - simply a matter of persistence! This method has the effect of all but eliminating the light behind the headcode. However I would argue that this is a good thing for realism as these lights were scarcely noticeable in daylight working. It is only recently, with the introduction of the hi-density headlights seen on 66's that loco lights have really been discernible during the day.

 

5) For the record my replacements were;

 

7J31, 11.09 Mansfield to Whitemoor loaded coal, reference George Toms in his book on Brush. This would not have been an mgr, but rather traditional mineral stock. Aside from one well publicised shot at Greetham Jn running as a test train with 13 tonners to the fore, I know of no photos of these workings, despite them being by far the main employment of this loco whilst in Britain, both before and after the bogie change! Of course lots of shots of it on the "glam" ECML services which lasted two or three months - these are the heacodes supplied by Heljan.

 

4C70, 19.40 Hull to Stratford intermodal - freightliner in those days, reference John Turner in his 53A flickr gallery. His is the only shot I am aware of of this working.

 

6) A big moan! This change was possible but fiddly. I deeply resent the cavalier attitude of some manufacturers, and here Bachmann's lit Deltic is a prime example, where the heacode is printed on the back of the glass. The odds are evens at best that however careful an attempt is made at polished removal, say with fine wet and dry and brasso, damage will result, and these folk can't be bothered to offer spares!! Whilst in the 1960's and 70's trains did run with incorrect headcodes on occasion, the ability to make this change to match our miniature train in service is in my view essential for any kind of realism - however finely detailed a loco it looks nothing short of ridiculous hauling a slow freight behind a Class 1 headcode!

 

I hope this with be of interest, and compliments of the season to all.

 

John Tomlinson

[50A55B]

Thanks for that John, any chance of a pic or two?

 

This is a change I have contemplated but have been put off by my damaging the yellow paintwork around headcode panels on a Hymek and 47 when pushing the 'glass' out.

I would agree re. Heljan undermining the realism of their headcodes on this model (and Falcon) by making the characters undersize. Close examination of Kestrel photos suggests that the headcode panel itself was flat behind the curved glass, and with a bigger gap between the second and third digits.

I have a set of original headcode blinds and have scanned then to enable me to make up codes as required.

[Pennine MC]

7J31, 11.09 Mansfield to Whitemoor loaded coal, reference George Toms in his book on Brush. This would not have been an mgr, but rather traditional mineral stock.

That's particularly interesting John, thank you

[John Tomlinson]

I've had a go at photographing the revised headcodes (resolution for 2011 must practice this!) and this is attached. My experience with yellow paint flaking off was the same on some 47's, and I found a tiny drop of yellow on the end of a cocktail stick enabled the touch in to be made with precision, rather than using a brush. The use of a flat headcode apparatus would , on reflection, make a lot of sense as they could just have installed a standard 47 one, and if so I wonder if the greater space between the second and third digits is merely optical illusion, caused by refraction through curved glass either side of the midpoint?

 

John

[Colin_McLeod]

Bump

[SRman]

I have now fitted mine with Howes' sound in a LokSound 3.5 decoder. At this stage it still only has the 23mm round speaker on board but I will improve on this before I video it in action. I did demonstrate it (amongst others) on the BRMA stand at the recent Brandon Park exhibition in Melbourne but it wasn't especially loud with only the standard speaker so I could only really use it to advantage at quieter times.

[trent]

I have now fitted mine with Howes' sound

 

What sound files do they use for this? Any chance of the vid?

 

Martin

[SRman]

Sorry Martin, I haven't yet videoed it, although I do intend to in the not too distant future (like during the Christmas - New Year break when I have a short holiday).

 

The sounds Bryan has used came from a French locomotive with the same Sulzer 16 cylinder engine bit with BR sounds, such as the horns, added using archive footage as a guide to get as close a match as humanly possible, considering the prottype is no longer around from which to get recodings.

[trent]

Sorry Martin, I haven't yet videoed it, although I do intend to in the not too distant future (like during the Christmas - New Year break when I have a short holiday).

 

The sounds Bryan has used came from a French locomotive with the same Sulzer 16 cylinder engine bit with BR sounds, such as the horns, added using archive footage as a guide to get as close a match as humanly possible, considering the prottype is no longer around from which to get recodings.

 

So did you get that video done?

 

Sounds interesting. Think I'll have to add this one especially given Bryan's already tackled the sound files.

 

Martin

[SRman]

Not yet. Too hot at the moment to do anything but sit around and melt! 40 degrees C today in Melbourne.

[trent]

Too hot at the moment to do anything but sit around and melt! 40 degrees C today in Melbourne.

 

What? 40oC? Mere spring day temps in Doha!

 

Martin

[SRman]

[APOLLO]

Came across this by accident, great for Kestrel fans

 

 

Brit15

[andyman7]

Came across this by accident, great for Kestrel fans

 

 

Brit15

OK, who else spotted the departmental CoBo (D5705) in the APT-E segment

[mikesndbs]

After nearly a year of owning a Kestrel, I finally plucked up the courage to try to change the headcodes on Christmas Eve! To my relief this is not as difficult as we might think.

 

1) Separate body from chassis by releasing the four bodyside lugs - as on the 47. You also need to release the jumper cable which runs from the lower nearside cab to a little box by the nearside buffer. Once separate I released the two cables which run from the printed circuit board to the cab - this can be done by carefully eeasing out the push socket on the circuit board.

 

2) You now have a free bodyshell. Inside you can peel back the sticky silver paper that helps to hold the cab assemblies in place - these will then unclip from the roof socket to reveal the headcode panel from inside. The printed headcodes are not fixed to the glass but rather rest against it, and can be flicked out with careful use of the point of a cocktail stick. If you wish, you can release the glass headcode panels by pushing gently from the inside so they fall outwards - they are rebated this way and I seem to remember that the 47 has the same arrangement. I pressed gently at one end with a blunt cocktail stick whilst giving support outside with a finger - this did the job without damage - phew!!

 

3) You can now use a marker pen/ fine brush/ whatever to render the inside edge of the headcode panel black, though I should say that it doesn't make a huge amount of difference when re-assembled. Proceed then to making up your required headcodes. I used the Heljan examples as a template to cut two pieces thin black paper card, which has the flexibility to bend into the curve required. For headcodes themselves I used the Modelmaster sheet 4208, but not as decals, rather cutting to size and sticking with Bostik Solvent Free to the papercard. I used a small black marker to touch in any parts of the "decal" where the backing paper had been revealed in the cutting process. You now have two replacement headcode strips to your choice. By using this Modelmaster sheet, which has larger symbols than his 4206, I found that the symbol height almost completely filled the headcode space on the model, and looked far more realistic compared to photographs as a result. The codes supplied have been printed too small, giving the toy like appearance referred to elsewhere in this forum. I wouldn't like to say if the moulded box itself is of inadequate height, but there is certainly a great improvement in appearance by merely using larger letters. It would be possible I suppose to mark the outer lip of the headcode box in black, but this would need a far steadier hand than mine and has the potential to look dreadful if not done precisely - if achieved it would represent the rubber surround clearly visible on prototype photos.

 

4) The whole thing can then be re-assembled. I found positioning of the replacement strips a bit tricky, and for some reason one of them went in best before re-fitting the glass and the other after - simply a matter of persistence! This method has the effect of all but eliminating the light behind the headcode. However I would argue that this is a good thing for realism as these lights were scarcely noticeable in daylight working. It is only recently, with the introduction of the hi-density headlights seen on 66's that loco lights have really been discernible during the day.

 

5) For the record my replacements were;

 

7J31, 11.09 Mansfield to Whitemoor loaded coal, reference George Toms in his book on Brush. This would not have been an mgr, but rather traditional mineral stock. Aside from one well publicised shot at Greetham Jn running as a test train with 13 tonners to the fore, I know of no photos of these workings, despite them being by far the main employment of this loco whilst in Britain, both before and after the bogie change! Of course lots of shots of it on the "glam" ECML services which lasted two or three months - these are the heacodes supplied by Heljan.

 

4C70, 19.40 Hull to Stratford intermodal - freightliner in those days, reference John Turner in his 53A flickr gallery. His is the only shot I am aware of of this working.

 

6) A big moan! This change was possible but fiddly. I deeply resent the cavalier attitude of some manufacturers, and here Bachmann's lit Deltic is a prime example, where the heacode is printed on the back of the glass. The odds are evens at best that however careful an attempt is made at polished removal, say with fine wet and dry and brasso, damage will result, and these folk can't be bothered to offer spares!! Whilst in the 1960's and 70's trains did run with incorrect headcodes on occasion, the ability to make this change to match our miniature train in service is in my view essential for any kind of realism - however finely detailed a loco it looks nothing short of ridiculous hauling a slow freight behind a Class 1 headcode!

 

I hope this with be of interest, and compliments of the season to all.

 

John Tomlinson

 

 

Hi John

 

My Kestrel arrived today, sadly one end the cab windows were rattling around lose in the cab and the headcode glass was also hanging out

 

FFS, but I thought I'd have a go at fixing based on your guide.

 

Well I think something must have changed because I was ready to give up a number of times.

The main cab box was glued in place.

The silver foil stuff tor despite careful easing.

Once I had refitted the window (easy with a little glue) I then spent some hours trying to get the headcode glass back in, it had to be tacked with glue in the end as it just would not stay put.

 

Then came the real hell of it, trying to reassemble the section with the instrument backing and LED light, utter madness how they have done this, once again after a futile hour or so I had to use super glue.

Then of course getting the wires in under the red perspex was fun and games as well.

Finally all assembled I found out what the silver foil was all about, some kind of light box I noted.

I had to make do with black tape.

She is all back together minus the bottom half of the pipe you mention, snapped while fighting with the headcode.

 

Great running but sadly I must have messed up the lightbox because when running with that cab trailing  get a red glow through the headcode and tail lights.

 

Phew! 

[John Tomlinson]

Hi Mike,

 

Sorry to read of your troubles with this - having watched some of your videos I must say that if you've struggled then little hope for the average punter.

 

Was yours a second hand one or have they done another production run? For what its worth Howes used to carry a decent range of Heljan spares, but I don't know if this is still the case.

 

I do think it is an excellent model, and I still have a raw Silver Fox body which the Heljan product spared me the struggle of trying to finish to a decent standard in the yellow and umber livery. I have toyed with a " what if" in say railfreight three tone grey, but then I have lots of these daft ideas!

 

John.

[mikesndbs]

Hi Mike,

 

Sorry to read of your troubles with this - having watched some of your videos I must say that if you've struggled then little hope for the average punter.

 

Was yours a second hand one or have they done another production run? For what its worth Howes used to carry a decent range of Heljan spares, but I don't know if this is still the case.

 

I do think it is an excellent model, and I still have a raw Silver Fox body which the Heljan product spared me the struggle of trying to finish to a decent standard in the yellow and umber livery. I have toyed with a " what if" in say railfreight three tone grey, but then I have lots of these daft ideas!

 

John.

 

 

Thanks John, brand new, appeared on Hattons this week so thought I'd get one as missed the original run. When I am feeling less annoyed I'll no doubt have another go and see if I can refine it more

[John Tomlinson]

Hi Mike, I had a look at the Hattons site, and I'd guess this is another production run, which might account for the glueing of the cab box.

 

IIRC mine was £99 in 2009, and at no point was there any real discounting, so eight years on a 50% price hike however unwelcome probably represents a good deal for the purchaser, given other price moves in the industry.

 

Saw Hattons have some good deals on the Heljan 26 at the moment, particularly in their original form as operated on the GN out of Kings Cross. Tempting....

 

John.